


The Young Man's Song

by xogazi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M, Poetry, Post-War, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 00:22:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xogazi/pseuds/xogazi
Summary: At the end of the world, Remus spent his afternoons reading Muggle poetry.(Or: After Sirius Black's betrayal of the Potters in 1981, Remus is deemed a suspect and placed in a Dangerous Magical Creature Holding Facility. Featuring: angst, pining, and an excess of poetry by William Butler Yeats.)





	The Young Man's Song

At the end of the world, Remus spent his afternoons reading Muggle poetry. He read Emily Brontë and Dylan Thomas, Keats and T.S. Elliot, lazily analyzing every other stanza. He read novels and epics, too, Chaucer and Homer and Proust and Jules Verne in the original French, stumbling through rusty conjugations, his tongue tripping over _je_ and _j’ai, sens_ and _sans._ During the summer between his fifth and sixth year, Remus had picked up a little of the language in the hopes of impressing a French Muggle girl; more accurately, Peter had insisted that Remus pick up the language so that Peter himself could learn enough to impress said French Muggle girl, leaving Remus as the unfortunate and linguistically talented middle man. It had all come so easily, at the time.

Now expression through language in any capacity baffled Remus. In the mornings he would sit at the kitchen table with his tea, scalding hot, and marvel at the slanderous drivel plastered across the front page of yesterday’s Daily Prophet.

 

BLACK’S TROUBLED TEENAGE YEARS: THE MAN BEHIND THE MONSTER

 

With his tea cooling on the counter, Remus would wonder at how quickly the wizarding media had resorted to inane gossip-column-type material, having run out of proper news to report. He would then put down the newspaper, pick up the closest volume of poetry or fiction, and resume reading from where he’d left off the night before. It was a passable existence—a passive one of inaction, non violence, and endless days of Muggle poetry. He considered himself, in his more lucid moments, rather like Nero—fiddling away as Rome burned around him.

Muggle history was something else Remus had taken to as he retreated into the familiar role of shabby, nonthreatening academic, right down to his cardigans and patchy tweed. It was a façade he had been tending to for years, ever since the war had begun and widespread panic had set in. No one would suspect innocent, studious Remus Lupin, kind and thoughtful and well-liked Remus Lupin—yet, as proven by the past several months, many had, and so Remus was cautious. While he knew in his heart that he was as innocent as could be, said heart still had a habit of leaping into his throat whenever there came an unexpected knock on his door.

Take today, for instance. That morning, Remus Lupin did something a bit uncharacteristic, in that he opted for coffee instead of tea. This was because Remus hadn’t slept in the slightest. Instead, he’d spent the long night with a Yeats anthology and the last tin of biscuits from the pantry. It was as the waxing gibbous moon descended at last that Remus heard a sharp knock on his front door. He sipped his coffee. There was more knocking—duller this time, and louder, so much so that the doorknob and hinges rattled. It was as if the person outside was rapping on the door with the head of a cane. With a heavy sigh Remus stood, drained his coffee mug, placed the anthology face down on the table, and opened the door.

It was Cornelius Fudge. Remus recognized him from the previous day’s paper; Fudge had given an interview in an edition of The Prophet titled: “POTTER AND BLACK: SECRET HOMOSEXUAL LOVE AFFAIR UNVEILED?”. He was dressed in his Ministry-standard bowler hat and starched black robes, and was holding a briefcase.

“Ah,” said Fudge, “Mr. Lupin. I’m very happy to have found you at home.” He smiled politely and, without another word, stepped past Remus and into the flat. He was followed by several Aurors and a whole troupe of young witches and wizards, all—Remus could only guess—either Junior Aurors or trainees belonging to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, as Fudge did. They had to form a single-file line in order to enter the flat, and bringing up the back of the line was none other than Alastor Moody himself. He glared at Remus upon passing, and if Remus detected a flicker of pity in Moody’s one good eye, he avoided mentioning it.

“Mr. Lupin,” Fudge said again, pursing his thin lips. “It has come to the attention of the Ministry of Magic that you are—err, _were_ an accomplice of one Sirius Orion Black, yes?”

“Friend,” Remus corrected, without thinking.

“Sorry?” questioned Fudge.

“Not an accomplice,” said Remus, turning away from the door. “I was his friend.” He gave Fudge a tight smile, pulled out a chair, and resumed where he’d left off in his anthology, trying his best to ignore the dozen or so Ministry trainees now ogling him. Remus wondered, bitterly, whether they’d ever seen a live werewolf before.

Fudge seemed taken aback, but rolled with the punches to an admirable degree. “Yes, erm. Right. You did, then, consider yourself a ‘friend’ of Sirius Black?” he said, stressing the word “friend” as if it could easily have been replaced with the word “sympathizer”.

“I did,” Remus said, his voice remarkably steady, each of his hands clamped to either side of his book. _I had a thought for no one’s but your ears,_ he silently read, _That you were beautiful, and that I strove / To love you in the old high way of love._

Clearing his throat, Fudge went on. “And you were also close friends with a Mr. Peter Pettigrew, yes?”

 _That it all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown / As weary-hearted as that hollow moon,_ read Remus, wondering if Fudge had come just to rub Remus’ nose in all of this. “Yes,” he said.

Fudge’s face assumed a rather pinched look that Remus chose to interpret as an attempt at sympathy. “My sincerest condolences, then,” said Fudge. “Mr Lupin—” He placed his briefcase on the ground then stepped forward. He approached slowly, making no sudden movements, until his rounded midsection bumped the table’s edge opposite Remus. “Things are,” Fudge continued hesitantly, “difficult at present, to be perfectly honest with you. I’m afraid many within the Ministry suspect that you aided Black in his betrayal of the Potters to You-Know-Who.”

Remus quashed a familiar flare of fury. He continued to stare at the open page in his book of poems, rereading the same stanza three times over before responding, “I didn’t.”

Fudge sighed, his face looking more pinched than ever, “I’m afraid we cannot be sure. I’m sorry to say that a more,” he paused, “more thorough interrogation has been deemed necessary.”

Remus flipped a page. There, between one stanza and the next, was a footnote written in Remus’ own handwriting. _TELL HIM._ He shut the book with a snap, feeling grimly satisfied when the sound made several of the Ministry trainees jump. “If you think I aided Sirius Black in betraying and as good as murdering Lily and James Potter,” Remus said flatly, “then I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong man.” He then opened the book to a random section and pretended to read once more.

Over the top of his page, he saw Fudge give a great sigh. “I truly am sorry for your loss, Mr. Lupin,” he said, then he gave a twitch of two fingers, a sort of “go ahead” signal. Remus, who had been unaware of the two Aurors who’d snuck around to the other side of the table, was startled into dropping his book as two large hands clapped down upon his shoulders. Something thick and leathery was lowered quickly over his mouth and nose like a muzzle. It was, in fact, a muzzle, one made from clear plastic and tan leather and designed for humans—or rather, for werewolves, Remus thought distantly. On instinct he thrashed a bit, his shout of alarm silenced by the muzzle, but the hold on his shoulders wouldn’t budge, pinning him effectively to his chair. Another Auror circled around behind him and, with an efficient binding hex or two, paralyzed and bound the rest of Remus’ body. Fudge’s briefcase then sprung open and from it flew forth several leather straps, which wrapped themselves around Remus’ legs and torso, further immobilizing him.

“For good measure,” Fudge said to the trainees behind him. “And that is how you incapacitate a werewolf,” he told them, smiling pleasantly. “Can anyone tell me the curses used by Auror Dawlish during this process?” A young witch in front raised her hand. Fudge gestured to her, “Yes, Miss…?”

“Proudfoot, sir,” she said, “Alicia Proudfoot.”

“Yes, Miss Proudfoot?” Fudge prompted.

“He used a Full Body Binding Curse and a non-verbal variation of the Incarcerous Spell,” responded Proudfoot promptly.

Fudge grinned, “Ah! Excellent, good work Miss Proudfoot. Anyone else…? Ah, yes, Mr. Savage, is it?” he asked, pointing to a wizard near the back. The crowd of trainees parted as an Auror kicked open Remus’ front door and began levitating him towards it. Remus, being immobilized, was forced to stare at the ceiling and notice all of its cracks and imperfections. One stain in particular caught his eye—an odd squiggle shape—and he focused on it to calm his frantic nerves. It looked a bit like a stag—no, it was a wolf—no, a dog. Yes, definitely.

“Yes, sir,” said Savage. “Why is it necessary to, um…” He paused, looking nervous. “To…to muzzle him, sir?” The question followed Remus out the door as he idly pondered, Why, indeed?

“Ah, a very good question,” said Fudge, who sounded more pleased with himself than normal. “You see, the lycanthropic affliction is transmitted through a werewolf biting a human being, even while in its humanoid form…” Fudge’s voice trailed off as the door to the flat was gingerly shut behind them.

“That Fudge does have a bit of a flare for theatrics, eh?” said one of the men to Remus’ right.

“Theatre is one word for it,” responded a man to the left, “Don’t got much of a taste for it, meself. What if it’d given time for this one to get away?” Remus felt the tip of a wand poke at his ribs, and his eyes fluttered back and forth as if he could will his body into movement. “I mean, what if he’d,” said the man. “You know…”

“What if he’d done what, Williamson? Recited poetry at you?” spoke the grizzled voice of Alastor Moody. Remus had only heard it once before, at the Werewolf Registry years ago, but it remained unmistakable. Remus and his father had visited the Registry only once before Remus had gone away to Hogwarts; it was on the very same night that Moody, then only a Junior Auror, had lost his leg to a particularly nasty Manticore attack.

“Werewolf got you, eh boy?” Moody had growled at Remus, who had only nodded shyly. Moody had grunted, looked Remus up and down with his magical eye, and told Lyall, “He’s strong, this one, and with a good head on his shoulders. He’ll live.” Then he’d hobbled off, down the sterile hallway and out of sight, likely unaware of the hope he’s just sparked in Remus’ five-year-old heart.

“‘What if he’d’ what? Hmm? Bitten the lot of you?” Moody was saying now, sounding as gruff and snappish as he ever did. “You lads would be lucky if a little nip was all young Mr. Lupin gave you after this nonsense.” Moody continued muttering as Remus was levitated down the hall, words like “Fudge” and “bastard” and “bloody hogwash” floating up to Remus’ level alongside the rhythmic snap-thump, snap-thump of Moody’s hinged wooden leg on the carpet.

Indeed, Remus had almost been lulled into a troubled sleep by the sound when he was dropped from levitation and deposited roughly into what was by any definition a prison cell, spelled iron bars and all. He noticed the sign outside the cell read: “Magical Creature Holding Chamber,” but Remus knew it to be a cell, just the same. The ropes and straps binding his body were undone, and he saw a flash of red light before his limbs unfroze. Remus took a long, gasping breath through his mouth, hardly noticing as the door to the cell was slammed shut and locked with a great rusted key. He ripped the muzzle off, throwing it through the bars of his cell; it landed with a clatter in the other cell across the way. He lay that way, for a while: splayed on the filthy ground of the cell, gasping for air like a half-drowned rat. While he breathed, he contemplated. The treatment he’d received from the Aurors had been nothing unusual, according to the other werewolves Remus had spoken to on Order of the Phoenix business, just last month—but why now? It had been weeks since Sirius’ betrayal and subsequent capture, so why had the ministry taken their time in bringing Remus in for questioning? Remus had been consorting with Sirius Black for as long as they could both remember; surely, this was common knowledge.

Wasn’t it?

Before Remus could think himself into a miserable spiral of self-doubt, however, there was a distant clatter of keys and a familiar snap-thump, snap-thump, snap-thump. Ignoring the urge to rush forward and press his face to the bars, Remus only sat up from where he was sprawled in the middle of the floor. He crossed his legs, composing his face in a pleasant smile just in time for Auror Moody to come hobbling around the corner.

Moody stopped with a huff in front of Remus’ cell. “Remus,” he said.

“Alastor,” said Remus.

“Don’t ‘Alastor’ me, boy,” said Moody. “We both know you don’t want to be in here any more than I wanted to put you in here, so how about we skip the niceties and cut to the chase. Did you help Black or didn’t you?”

Remus sighed, “I didn’t.”

“I know that, and you know that, but it’s not what the Ministry wants to hear, and they’re going to keep asking until they get what they want. Did you help Black betray the Potters to Voldemort?”

“No,” snapped Remus, clenching his teeth so hard that he felt his jaw creak under the strain.

“Remus,” warned Moody, and Remus took a deep breath. “Did you help Black betray and murder Lily and James Potter?”

“No,” Remus said, staring evenly out at Auror Moody, who snorted approvingly.

“Good,” he said, “Again.”

“I did not help Sirius Black betray and murder Lily and James Potter,” said Remus.

“Good! They’re going to be asking that and worse, so you’ll have to keep your defenses up. Constant vigilance!” barked Moody. Then, when Remus didn’t respond, he continued, “Oh, and I thought you might be wanting some entertainment in the long hours to come, so—” Moody produced a short stack of books from within his coat, tossing them lightly between the bars.

Remus exhaled and said, “Thank you,” his voice coming thick and scratchy.

Looking suddenly uncomfortable, Moody nodded and, without another word, shuffled away from the bars and out of sight.

Remus put his face in his hands, trying to calm his breathing. The moment he’d known who it was at his door, Remus had known what was to come (though the muzzle had been a surprise,) and he was therefore unwilling to admit how much it’d shaken him. It was something about the chill of his very own prison cell that made everything seem more real—Lily, James and Peter were dead, Harry was parentless, and Sirius had betrayed them all.

God, _Sirius._ Remus felt a burning thrill of something like rage course through him, but it gave way to blankness before he could think on it. Sirius was probably sitting in his very own little cell somewhere, Remus supposed. He doubted Sirius would be in Azkaban already, but with the chaos surrounding his conviction, who knows? Certainly not Remus—no, he’d long since learned not to assume that he knew anything about Sirius Black.

Determined not to think any more on the subject, Remus did what he’d always done: he managed. He stood up and paced a bit around the cell, noting the sink against one wall, the motheaten mattress in the corner farthest from the door. Eventually, having grown bored of pacing, Remus examined the pile of books Moody had left with him. They were, upon closer inspection, revealed to be some of Remus’ own books, including the Yeats anthology he’d been reading earlier that morning. Merlin, had it only been a few hours since then? Remus didn’t know, as there were no windows, the only light source being a lamp hung on the wall opposite his cell. It was unfortunate, Remus thought to himself, that whoever had so kindly shoved him into this ruddy cell had neglected to leave a clock lying about.

He sat on the mattress and thumbed through the anthology—it helpfully fell open to the page he’d been reading that morning. _We sat together at one summer’s end, / That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, / And you and I, and talked of poetry._ There were doodles in the margins of this page, flowers and butterflies, spiders and meaningless squiggles and one perfectly round full moon, with craters and all. Remus vaguely remembered the time when he’d taken to drawing the moon on everything in the spirit of “facing his fear,” or something along those lines.

“‘Facing your fears,’” Sirius had scoffed when Remus had told him about it one sunny afternoon. “What rubbish.” They’d been sprawled in the grass beside the Black Lake, playing a rousing game of How Many Times Can Prongs Be An Utter Tosspot to Lily Evans Before He Gets His Head Smashed In With Her Herbology Textbook? Sirius had faced him and grinned, his eyes full of youthful conviction, his teeth full of seeds from where he’d been chewing a long stalk of wheat. “You don’t need to face your fears, Moony,” he’d said. “You’ve got us for that. Right, Wormtail?”

“Whassat? Oh! Right, yeah,” Peter had said, barely glancing up from his Transfiguration homework.

Then, at the bottom of the page, there was that note again: _TELL HIM._ He traced the words with a calloused finger. The handwriting was barely recognizable as Remus’ own, as the note had been hurriedly written and the ink not allowed to dry before the book was shut. This was likely due to a younger Sirius’ habit of hooking his chin over Remus’ shoulder and doing dramatic recitations of whatever he was reading. Remus didn’t have it in him to fake ignorance as to who the splotchy “HIM” in “TELL HIM” was, but what was he to say now, after everything? “Pick up some milk on your way home from Azkaban”? “I loved you, we all loved you, you bastard, how could you”? Would Remus recite a poem at him, in the hopes that the beautiful words of someone else might get through to Sirius where Remus’ own clumsy wording could not?

Just then, as Remus was finally allowing himself a moment to wallow in his grief and self-pity, there was a loud BANG! as a nearby door was thrown open. Remus leaned forward to look around the cell bars; coming down the hall was a young, gangly-looking wizard—probably someone’s intern or something similar—who was levitating a tray of what looked like a rather cold lump of lamb stew and a small mountain of soggy chips. Behind the quaking intern was a beefy, dark-skinned wizard with a shiny bald head, purple robes and an air of general unamusement about him. The look he sent Remus’ way was not malicious, merely very serious. He was carrying a small plastic cup of clear water.

The pair stopped before Remus’ cell. “Y-y-y-y-” said the intern. “Y-your f-f-food, s-sir.” With a shaky flick of his wand, he floated the tray in through a horizontal slot in the bars, which slammed shut the moment the tray was inside. Remus, who was hungry now that he had paused to think about food, watched the tray as it drifted gently downward to rest on the floor in front of the mattress where he sat.

“Ah,” said Remus, smiling kindly at the poor boy, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. “Yes. Thank you.”

The boy seemed unsure how to take this response; there was sweat beading on his brow, and his eyes flitted down the hall every few seconds. “Y-y-you’re welcome.”

The large wizard behind the boy put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, then said, “Remus Lupin. We’re going to be starting the interrogation process as soon as possible, around 0800 hours tomorrow. I recommend, therefore, that you get some rest.”

Remus startled, “Tomorrow,” he said. “But that’s—”

“—The full moon,” said the wizard, “I know. Like I said: best to keep your strength up, if possible. It will be a long day tomorrow.” He nodded down at Remus, looking nearly as uneasy as Remus felt.

“Oh. Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course. Thank you. For letting me know.”

The man nodded once more; then, with a hand on the young intern’s shoulder, he steered the pair of them back down the hallway.

Tomorrow. Remus scrubbed a hand down his face, staring mournfully at his stew. Did the Ministry plan to make more of a fool of him than it already had? They had to know that the day before a full moon made one particularly short tempered—or at least, it did if one happened to be a werewolf. Hormonal levels were elevated, physical strength increased, senses heightened, and one’s magic became particularly erratic on the day before a transformation. It was essentially the equivalent of a menstrual cycle plus a lengthy adrenaline rush. This was, Remus knew, common knowledge among the werewolves he’d met, but the question was: did the Ministry know? Did they plan to take advantage of Remus’ chaotic state of mind, prodding and poking at him until he broke his composure? If he let himself be provoked into fighting back, Remus was certain the anti-werewolf faction of the Ministry would have a field day with the “proof” that werewolves were indeed dangers to themselves and society, even while human in all but name.

Sighing, Remus closed his book and set it on the mattress. He poked at the lamb stew with a finger; it was stone cold and congealed, and he sighed once again before waving his hand over the lump of food in a nonverbal warming charm, taught to him by his father, Lyall Lupin. “Learn how to care for yourself,” Lyall had told him, “and you will never need another soul to care for you. Remember that, Remus.”

In an instant, the stew was piping hot and the chips were warmer, if still unnervingly flaccid. Lacking a knife or fork, he ate with his fingers, carefully picking apart his food into bite-sized chunks. He swallowed slowly so as not to disturb his nervous stomach, and used half of his drinking water to clean his hands after finishing. Certain that someone somewhere was watching his every move, Remus tried to appear as dignified as he could manage while eating food that his captors had given him. It had crossed his mind that the food was drugged, but he had eaten regardless so as not to appear too suspicious. Perhaps a display of trust towards his government on Remus’ part may inspire the Wizengamot—the high court of the English wizarding world—to have some trust in his innocence. There was no way to know, just yet.

It was late; despite the lack of a window in his cell, something in Remus could feel the dying of the day making his body sag, his eyelids droop. He set his tray and empty water cup aside and laid back onto the mattress on his back. He lifted the anthology to his face; it was open to one of Remus’ old favorites, and there was an underlined passage that read:

_For he would be thinking of love_

_Till the stars had run away,_

_And the shadows eaten the moon._

Halfway down the page, between one stanza and the next, there was a tiny doodle of a full moon; curled around it, drawn in a different colored pen, was a tiny constellation. Remus frowned at it; his knowledge of astronomy was rudimentary at best, remnants from his time wasted lounging at the top of the astronomy tower all night long. “Which one’s Orion, again?” Peter would always ask, and every time Remus would say, “That one, there, with the belt,” and point to it.

“Oh,” Peter would say. “‘S beautiful.”

“I’ll show you beautiful.” Sirius would stand, then, and point out his glittering namesake. “There I am, lads,” he’d say. “The brightest star in the all the sky.”

“Bet you can see his fat head from all the way up there, eh Moony?” James would lean over and whisper to Remus, who’d grin down at whatever nameless tome he’d likely be reading.

Still, despite his limited knowledge of the stars, Remus knew this particular set intimately. It was the constellation Canis Major, home to the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere: Sirius.

“Of course,” Remus said to himself; his voice carried around his quiet cell and down the hall. “Sirius. Of course.” He closed the book, setting it back down on his chest. Of course it was Sirius. Remus didn’t remember ever seeing that constellation there before, smiling innocently from beside his drawing of a full moon, but that wasn’t to say that he was surprised; early on in their friendship, Sirius had taken to claiming the possessions of his friends as a way of claiming his friends themselves, so the long-ago vandalism of one of Remus’ books didn’t come as much of a shock. No, what had Remus shivering (besides the chill of his containment cell, which provided a constant reminder of his circumstances) was how utterly natural it looked: the moon nestled among the stars. Moony and Padfoot, together forever in the margins of _The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats: Definitive Edition_. Never before had Remus considered the full moon to be particularly serene, for the obvious reasons among many others, but next to the little sketched Canis Major it didn’t seem so unnervingly lonesome, anymore. The symbolism was nearly obscene in its blatancy.

Remus stared up at the ceiling, which was no less cold and unwelcoming than the rest of the holding cell; he imagined a fat white moon—nearly full—rising overhead and painting Remus’ glorified cage with its light. Tomorrow, he was to be questioned about his compliance in the betrayal and murder of two of his best friends. It seemed like almost yesterday, he was sharing a flat with a third, making joint grocery lists and being mocked for his dreary taste in reading material. Remus sighed, long and heavy, then watched his breath crystallize in the air; he closed his eyes, pretending, as he was wont to do, that he didn’t really exist in this world, and that all the events of the past several years were nothing more than a nasty nightmare. He’d wake up soon, he knew—until then, however, he supposed that there was no harm in taking a brief moment to wallow.

Staring up at the ceiling of his personal prison, Remus finally resigned himself to being just the latest in a long line of things to have been utterly ruined by Sirius Black.

**Author's Note:**

> The poems referenced are, in order, "Adam's Curse" and "The Young Man's Song", both by W.B. Yeats.


End file.
